Sony PlayStation 5 Controller Images Released

If I was to reverse engineer the mood board, here’s my picks:

I think if that’s what they were going for, they did a good job. After looking at other photos, I don’t like the optical drive bulge either. In the head on shot, it looks well done, but in other views it looks like a hack job done at the last moment. Perhaps they planned to go 100% networked and someone freaked at the last minute.

I bet the lights can be disabled in the software options. I would assume so anyways as they could be annoying.

I think you nailed it, Ray.

That is a great exercise! Ret-conned design fiction.

If these images show production parts, or at least betas, that likely means Sony was working on this ID from the pre-C19 era. Think their country’s experience with quarantine would have changed the formal goals?

I do this in my head all the time, envisioning both with a inspiration imagery and the ideation sketches themselves. In any number of areas these days you can practically see the original gesture sketch that made it happen, and I really think it’s simply a result of different technologies and efficiencies catching up with designers’ intentions.

I have particularly noticed this in footwear - where it’s easier than ever to make a comfortable shoe around a highly-gestured last - and concept/film production design - where those slouchy, long-limbed Star Wars robots sketches that in the past had to be reigned in to fit the proportions of a guy in a suit are now completely believable, full-CGI characters.

In the case of the PS5, I’m pretty sure this was the original sketch. I mean, Ralph Lauren might want to consider legal action for Sony ripping off their collars :wink:

how do we sell more polos? Just put two on the catalog models… :slight_smile:

Hahah, Jeff.

The challenge of design is not so much in answering the question, but asking the right question in the first place. They may have nailed the inspiration board, but was it the right inspiration in the first place?

Again, I don’t see how it forwards the brand or gives anything ownable in the space. Not to mention the execution is poor with function, balance, ports, etc.

R

Another interesting piece of all this is that a few months ago there were a lot of reports from the rumor mill that Sony might miss their holiday '20 launch because they were having so much trouble finalizing the physical design of the PS5, mostly due to its (reportedly) large size and poor ventilation. That led a lot of people to believe they were trying to do something very different physically from previous console designs.

Turns out, even though it’s wrapped in a crazy skin, it’s almost the exact same physical execution as the PS2, 3, and 4 - vertical or horizontal orientation (with some caveats), roughly the scale of a small to medium-sized media or gaming PC, modest ventilation out the sides (or the top when oriented vertically.) Assuming those rumors were at least somewhat true, it leads me to believe Sony was so committed to doing something “new” visually that they lost sight of the fact that all they were doing was forcing an aesthetic without actually innovating.

Is the new Xbox worth talking about?

Looks OK, but I think the details are where a design this minimalist is made. I don’t think either of these make me want to buy one or the other. They both seem contemporary and styled, albeit with a very different aesthetic concept.

I like the white one. Very Braun.

I hate the PS more every time I see it.

R

That’s the best looking washing machine I’ve ever seen.

The more I see of this monstrosity the more I hate the idea of having to look at it in my house every day. I’m probably still in the Playstation camp because of some of its exclusive titles, but honestly whenever I do decide to buy a PS5 I might buy an empty PC case to put it inside just to avoid having to stare at its somehow simultaneously pointy and blobby nonsense.

WHOA. I really imagined this 2/3 the actual size. That thing is huge!

I am not a fan of the Braun-ish Xboxes, but the Sony implementation of what should be a somewhat similar product is really a head scratcher. Its on the scale of a typewriter. I don’t even think it will fit in the slot in my crappy IKEA furniture where a console should go. There are individually many neat and technically complex components - the venting molds are very elegant. Overall, just very, very strange. Gundam comes to mind.

Damn. I really wanted to play Ghost of Tsushima too.

Now that I think about it it’s strange that products as mature and widely used as video game consoles have never been drivers of a paradigm shift in the look and feel of tech products. Consoles change drastically in form factor every half decade or so, but to my knowledge no console has ever spurred the language of tech forward and driven the rest of the industry to try to play catch-up the way something like say the Motorola Razr did. Maybe it’s because the consoles themselves are basically loss-leaders to sell games (and consequently can’t afford to be much more than plastic boxes), but it’s just a strange thing I’ve never considered.

I would have been completely happy if Sony just kept re-hashing their Qualia language. Something that communicates the values of the company.
This teardown exposes the idea that 1) they wanted to make a form that kept temps low and 2) they wanted to hide every aspect of that.

I had never seen than line before. Honestly looks an awful lot like the original PS3.

I don’t know where console design is headed anymore. At least in the beginning companies dared to make a console look like a console, a unique product category on its own. But I do like the different controller designs that have emerged. The PSOne was too plasticky, granted, but the stepped approach of the PS2 and PS4 worked, and the PS3 at least made its volume more lightweight. The five looks like a skyscraper in Doha or Dubai and I’d rather have those as far from my home as possible.

In my eyes the Xbox is a futile attempt towards minimalism by designers who don’t understand it, not having been born in Northern Europe. The elements don’t get any breathing space, for one, which is essential to let them shine. Let any of us redesign any of the new consoles and I’m sure it will turn out much better. I recently got one of those retro Nintendo consoles not in the last place because I like the design much better :slight_smile:

Ignoring the subtle design xenophobia in this statement, I think Ralf Groene has what some might call a suitable pedigree for espousing and executing on ‘minimalism’. If there is any dilution of this aspect, I would attribute it more to corporate MS’ historical lack of restraint in design and communications, needing to really hit people over the head with a design statement.

Is there is a particular word or phrase that you use to describe the design of the PS5 console?
I tried to sculpt the invisible mass in between the player and the mechanical engineering. That’s how I describe it. There’s something in between hardware and the player, and that should be expressed.

As far as the aesthetics of the design, what inspired you?
I came up with the term “five dimensions.” When thinking about the experience we have, it’s kind of, you are living in a parallel world or you’re jumping around time or space. This is the PlayStation 5, so five dimensions really fits.

When the console was revealed, there were a lot of kind of playful comparisons to things like household objects. What were your reactions to seeing those memes?
[Laughter] I think it’s a good thing. When you design something, you want to make it feel comfortable. Sometimes it looks like a plant or some animal or some object. I think that’s more comfortable than something that’s weird, or something that they’ve never seen before. I think there’s a balance there.

I think it’s funny, though. I’m not offended or anything. I really like what people are playing with. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think it’s good energy.

Do you think ‘divisive’ is a good way to describe the public’s reaction to the PS5 reveal?
Well, that’s something I want to achieve all the time, so I think it was a good reaction. If you look at something really new, you react and say “what is it?” You don’t know how to react to it. When you look closer, you actually see some familiar structure to it. You kind of understand afterwards.

It’s really something beyond what we had already. But the skeleton was always square shapes and circles. There’s a precise measurement to it so you feel comfortable when you actually look at the object.

Props to him for standing by his design and his reasoning - and for kind of…maybe…sorta adding a tiny bit of logic to one orthographic view - but there is nothing about that object that makes me feel comfortable.